


Oak: Before The Doctorate

by PhrasalUsernamesAnnoyMe



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Red & Green & Blue & Yellow | Pokemon Red Green Blue Yellow Versions
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2019-10-23 01:31:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17673845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhrasalUsernamesAnnoyMe/pseuds/PhrasalUsernamesAnnoyMe





	1. Chapter 1

This is the story of Samuel Oak and his journey to becoming the world-renowned pokémon Professor; beginning as Oak, just a lad of nineteen, is in the first semester of his college career at the distinguished Celadon University. His grandmother bestowing upon him a journal and pen, his grandfather a single notebook, the day of his departure from the small town of Pallet fell on a sunless day in September—the move was arduous, probably more than it should have been. As he went on his way, his grandmother wailed: Take care of your blankets, don’t slouch like you do when you read, and, oh, please don’t forget to write, you hear? After a month’s worth of his first semester, the young undergrad had only just begun his studies, his passion for pokémon taxonomy only growing. 

 

_ Oct. 3, 1970 _

 

_ It’s been quite an interesting experience getting used to life in college recently. The people seem kind enough, but I’m still wondering what it is that I need to do here; as in what it is I’m meant to achieve. I know I want my degree, that’s obvious enough. But I don’t exactly know what I want to do after completing school. _

_ Today in my Fundamentals of Poké Ball Science class, I got paired with a girl who usually sits two rows behind, and three seats to the right of, me: Agatha. She kept refusing to give me her phone number, insisting that we schedule meetings to work outside of class. I wonder if this is because of my being from a hick town like Pallett coming to such a prestigious school like CU. There is bigotry against those from rural areas, I’ve been told. Maybe I can break free of that by becoming something even the most snobbish of big-city elitists have to respect. I can achieve that, I know it. I feel so free here, away from the chains of small-town life. People always told me that college was more than just for academic exploration. _

__ _ “You’ll learn and grow there as a person, too,” Grandpa used to say. So far the only growth I’ve had has been that of my distaste for the food in the big cities. I miss his cooking. _

 

Oak got up from his seat, closing his journal, and began to make his way down the hall, putting his leather-bound book on the shelf beside him. As his shuffle became a jaunt, he began to glance at the several posters lining the dormitory quickly—an Art Club’s unique design with a Smeargle grasping its tail, the minimalist background giving a postmodern feel; pokémon Contests were popular with the girls whose clopping heels he could hear down the hall, their legs as enticing, their movements as graceful, as the pokémon Fanclub president found his Rapidash, its likeness on that club’s poster; and a single flier tacked on the wall for the pokéatholon tryouts which would start that week. Finding none of these particularly enticing, Oak saw no need to join any of the multitudes of extracurriculars littering the campus with their constant vying for new members.

He continued down the hallway, toiletries tucked under his arm, and wondered what it was that he was supposed to be doing; what his Grandmother had meant by encouraging personal growth. He was there to learn, he knew that. But about what, he wasn’t entirely sure, and there was always pressure to become more involved in the multitude of student-led communities. There was a clear need for athletes, contestants, artists sure. But he’d never considered himself the type to engage in those sorts of things. He’d tried them in high school and was never as interested as the others were. All he needed was time, he was sure. His mentors always had faith in him, so he figured that was enough. Still, something felt off about not having an activity to be involved in. Having no community, not being a part of something, was, for some reason which he could not quite pin down, odd to him in a way that made him feel almost ashamed.

Coming back from the bathroom, the slight sting on his face from the cold wetness coating his face arousing a dulled lust for his bed, he turned again to the wall surrounded with posters and harboring a large Celadon University logo. He scanned it with his tired eyes, reading each letter as if entirely separate from the rest. First, was the C, then the, E, L, A, D, a girl, U….

Wait. Go back. There was a girl there—what?

“I’d appreciate it if you’d stop staring at me. It’s not Okay to just do that,” a sarcastic voice muttered. The girl turned her head upon the last of the whisper, revealing her face as one which Oak recognized. Agatha, who he was to see that Thursday, stood before him, her robe covering her as if she had similar wants as his own. She was smirking at him with a pair of seemingly hungry eyes. They said: Come play my game. Come find me. Come be with me.

“My apologies,” Oak stammers, “I was just looking at the signs on the wall.”

“Sure you were, and I’m the Pokémon League Champion. What are you doing staring at poor, defenseless, innocent girls, you pervert?”

While he would be lying if he said there weren’t a few times that he saw a more superficial appeal to her, Agatha’s question prompted an overzealous feeling in him despite, or perhaps because, of his—occasional, he was certain—admirations of her form. This was done only out of a pure acknowledgment of obvious facts, of course. Everyone knew how pretty she looked, of course; he was merely agreeing with the masses. Still, there had to be a reason he was thinking this now. It was a distraction, for certain, from his  conversation which he found increasingly uncomfortable. He responded, nonetheless, with a hearty blurt of amusement.

“Now, what innocent girl would only be wearing a robe out in a college dorm building? Seems you’re falling into your own trap.” That was clever, sure. Not that it particularly mattered. He gave a smile in expectant joshary.

A condescending look flew briefly across Agatha’s face. She liked this conversation, in a childish sort of way. Its evening mood was permeating throughout a stagnant hall alive with the musings of particularly staunch night owls whose roommates demanded their absence in light of their differing sleep schedules.

She flashed a look at his face before retorting, “I guess you’d need to ask one to find out, wouldn’t you?” She liked the look he got when she did that. Such a shock, it seemed, to him. She guessed there was some sort of fantasy playing out in his mind, and then dismissed that thought.

Looking back to her rather than at the ground which, as appealing as it was, served little conversational purpose, Oak gathered his thoughts and spoke again, a slight aspiration on his lips: “Well, there seems to be something amiss here, as I can’t seem to find one anywhere. Care to point me in one’s general direction? Any old one is fine, I just have a few questions, yep.” Real smooth, dumbass. Good job, he thought upon the penultimate uttering of his stupendously stupid attempt at keeping his cool, the very nature of such a struggle was the opposite of how attempting to act in such a way manifested in his gut come about twenty minutes adrift on the rocky, wave-ridden seas of an anxious psyche. Why did I even try? He’d begin to think upon that return to his hobbit hole of a dorm as the jagged feeling of what his nondescript choice of dinner had been that night grew up his esophagus, its burrlish form haunting his throat for what was, truly, the rest of the night.

“So tell me, what was it that makes you want to look at this poster? As much as I love to let people do their own thing, I do need to know what is appealing to onlookers. It’s good for advertising tips.” She was pointing to the Battle Club’s poster with an outstretched arm topped with a virtually nailless finger.

Oak looked at the poster, a Poliwhirl and Hitmonlee in a near collision on its centermost section, and noted the club’s affiliation with a particular Pokémon League; apparently, an institution exclusive to the college level.

“Well, I do enjoy the red and yellow coloring,” Oak said, his hand in a fist upon which his chin rested. “Why do you ask, besides the reason you already gave? Is there some connection you have with this, or…?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I’m the Battle Club President. It’s a little small right now, so we’re always looking for new members. Especially since the senior class makes up most of our good trainers, so, when they’re gone—

“You’ll be short on members,” Oak predicted.

“Yes, and we need at least three new members to have eight—the amount that keeps this chapter officially registered in the League.

“I see. What do you do exactly?”

“Battle,” Agatha giggled. She took her robe and turned away from him, seemingly on cue, as, realizing his stupidity in asking such a question, he had opened his mouth to begin profusely apologizing before her robe fluttered. This movement resulted in a flash of leg, possibly in Oak’s direction, and, for some reason, that shut him up.

“I see.” Oak’s face was blushing. He began stumbling backward. “Well, nice meeting you, but I've got a bed to get to.”

“I enjoyed our chat,” she said, “Feel free to ask for a sign-up sheet at the student plaza.”

“Right,” he responded and turned back around.

For whatever reason, he made a mental note to do just that as he made his way down the stairs to his room. The Battle Club sounded like just what he needed. He’d always wished for a pokémon of his own, and—as his grandparents never had the extra money, or the extra time—to get one of his own, he saw this as a prime excuse to obtain one. One always needs a reason for such things, his Grandmother had constantly reminded him. Pokémon and the like were a luxury, not toys, things to be had merely for the companionship. They were creatures all their own, and they deserve to remain so, as she would, so often, insist; she’d then go back to her butchering. The smell of raw meat and sticky sauces wafted through the kitchen as he would ponder how such a thing could be, the sultry atmosphere of that place—the kitchen—haunted him even now, and the passionately endowed philosophes of his guardians did both of the aforementioned, as well as took him to bed that night as he had been so often by his Grandma’s stories.

There were very clear depictions of her in his dreams, and they were as unpleasant as one could expect sleeping on the stone slates the college provided for mattresses would be. As he was having twice the amount of difficulty sleeping, there were frequent times when he would awaken to find his sheets moist, his forehead glistening in the light of the small desk lamp. His scintillating reflection against the mirror when he turned to face it was seemingly saggier, older, perhaps even decaying as she was—the elderly, Lovecraftian beast of his dreams. Her image would flash through his mind then, and it would linger on as he began to think of her corruption of the splendid nighttime fantasies visiting him then: a selection of tales he could only dream of, hence his anger at their cancellation. When he pieced them together, they were pleasant, empowering romps with his pokémon which he had obtained somewhere, probably a cave. He would be having the most enjoyable experience of his life, yelling attacks he only vaguely knew, defeating Pidgey and Registeel alike, and he was at peace because she was, at least for the time being, gone. Eventually, however, a Sandshrew would be flailing its claws at the opposing Doduo when she would appear, uninvited and menacing, as a looming anxiety pounding, digging, clawing at his psyche from below the recesses of his subconscious—and she would eventually surface. Lackluster compliance would soon follow as she controlled the Sandshrew's every move, ripping away its will, and Oak’s patience; he would fight her, then fail, then wake from the dream with his heart in a thumping state. This would continue until he noticed the clock was close enough to his usual time of awakening that he had no choice but to groggily accept that the day’s events would leave him craving a bed to the point of an unhygienic slumber, and the process would continue, her ghastly presence never ceasing to disturb his moonlit rests. It was his cycle, and like cycles so often do, it dizzied him to the point of discoordination so lacking in proper orientation that he wished for wakefulness as eagerly as languorously as he had begun yearning for rest. 


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, after his breakfast was about twenty minutes digested, Oak went up to the desk with a paper sign which signaled the adjunct booth as that containing forms for admission into the Battle club. Drawing his pen out of its secured place in his coat’s inner pocket, he sat and examined the sheet gingerly, steadying his chair as he began lying back in it. He noticed about three boxes in that he was lacking a Trainer Card, and thus couldn’t put down his ID number, and probably several other things required for the paper’s completion.

Seeking assistance, he turned to the man beside him, a scruffy, thirty-something fellow with a large backpack. Coughing lightly, he spoke: “Pardon me, sir. What is the most expedient way to obtain a Trainer Card?”

The man looked at him and bellowed, “Yew want a Trainer Card, eh? Whell, I de-clare! Eren’tchoo a little old not to have oneadem tings alreadeh?”

“Yes. Well—you see sir, my family wasn’t all that well-off, and so I never was able to get one for myself. Lack of funds, and all that. Now, could you please help me find where I need to go? Point me in the right direction, perhaps?

“Why a-course, son. Jist dewn dat wey a li’l bit.” Pointing a finger towards the doorway to their left, he looked over and corrected himself slightly. “Go on threw tha’wey till yous sees a big ol’ Slowpoke waggin’ its tail top a buildin’ wit a roun’ roof, see, and yuh’ll be ouright gettin’ in the doors from nare. Or, dusyus needs, ev’n moah, an explinashin on gettin’ in nat dooah?” There was laughter from both of them after that.

“No, sir. Thank you, sir,” Oak replied before folding the sheet and pocketing it, along with his pen, in that same coat nook in which he always had it.

He began walking were his guide had told him, a keen eye for pink was kept open indefinitely, unblinking and without rest. The doors of the Campus Community Center swung open slightly easier than when he had first stepped into the dome’s walkway. His arm was as a lever, firm and wedging, between him and the only barrier to his newfound world of wonder which was the road just off the corner of the path between Route 16 and the fountain which he stopped at just to look for a little while as he would go down to the department store, or, on the rare occasions when he felt so inclined, the diner just across the bridge. He was coming up on that same bridge when he stopped to think of what he would need, and figured that there was little else to do beyond head straight for the pinkish orb in the distance poking out at him like a peach. He saw the tip of the pokémon’s iceberg-white tail, a pointed, silicon barb like the nub of his toothbrush. He slowly walked towards it while humming to himself. Glee filled him as he saw the curled ears of the Slowpoke’s crest over the dune of its back; he was getting closer. He could smell the freshness of the grass as he went on his way, its scent more alluring than that of an Oddish, and he began to walk faster—his pace sufficient to best a race walk competition. The final stretch to the door was all he saw, the red-white handlebars looking like batons he was to catch in said race. This was his ticket to freedom. All those hours spent fishing for any reason to leave the tortures of the couple harboring his adolescent indignation which had gone utterly ignored beyond a curt dismissal, with the hand that had fed him kindly not two minutes before wagging the air around him as he protested; there was little more than a mutter to quiet him as he did so beyond that. This displeased him, that he would think such even now, but here he was.

He yanked against what seemed like the weight of three dozen worlds, the doors opening before he looked upon the face of a woman who greeted him with a smile. Walking up to the counter where she was standing. He inhaled audibly, the breath stammering before he uttered.

“Ma’am, I’d like to register for the—or, I’d like a Trainer Card, please, miss.”

“Of course, and your name would be…?” she said, ruffling papers as her gaze flicked between Oak and the documents she had dug out of a niche drawer.

“Samuel Oak.” A smile as he said this came across the eager boy’s lips.

Looking up as her mouth opened to reveal her teeth, she made a noise, “Oak. As in Professor Oak? The Professor Oak, from Pallette?”

“Yes, miss. That man would be my grandfather.” A slight smirk was flashed on his lips.

“I see. My son would— Well, this is business hours. You wouldn’t want to be bothered entertaining my child with his questions.”

“I wouldn’t mind. Just get me my card first, okay?” He gestured casually.

“Oh, could you? That would be lovely.” She smiled sweetly. “Of course, there’s your card to print. Here, let me just….” Printing his card, the woman looked at him as if to see if he was still there, which he was, of course. She was just checking to be certain. 

After the card had been printed and was placed in his palm, Oak laid eyes upon a youngster no older than thirteen who, wide-eyed and exuberant, was nearly bursting with inquiries pertaining to the elder Oak’s research; what it was that made him tick, it seemed, was a thirst for knowledge. His trivial recesses were immense, his intellect certainly above those his age, and the multitude of misconceptions he had of the Professor was born mostly of a warped public image portraying him as some sort of Doctor Frankenstein who aspired to breed pokémon to the point of divine excellence meant only for the Arceus of which he fervently denied existence to a somewhat laughable zeal.

“The notion of a divine beast,” the Professor would state with a voice of utmost certainty, “is as pompous for one to assume as the claim that evolutionary biology is some sort of demonic tool propagated by a being as, if not more outlandish than, the very pokémon the evidentiary analysis of my colleagues and I refutes, to begin with.” And so he would go on without end about the absurdity of an omniscient being having any viability. A claim his grandson would go on to mimic, much to the dismay of the boy he was lecturing whose religious upbringing had trained him in the ways of religious apologetics. This would continue as a discourse for quite some time, ending roughly at the time the next day as when they had begun the argument the previous afternoon. Discussions of Kabutops’ biological connection with Scyther, the probability of a proto-pokémon, and the philosophical validity of a divine being’s creation of a world in which it would be separate from it. How it was impossible for such an entity to be omnipresent, omni-benevolent, and yet separate from a world which, in the young boy’s words, is a sinful place, eventually leading the lad to the conclusion—without the mother’s knowledge, or perhaps even his own—that there was little one could say about such a godly figure that would both allow for its non-paradoxical existence and for its status as something which warranted reverence and worship. This discourse, stretching so long as to cause Oak to forget what his initial reason was for coming to meet the boy, would lead to the first glimpse the teenage aspiring scientist would have of a world free from his thought’s dogmatic subjugation at the hands of another figure who was unwilling to let her conversations with them delve into debating such matters, with a head full of consistently inconsistent uncertainty—she was blind, despite her identifying as otherwise, and both her son and Oak could see this was her only attitude which she was willing to exhibit. To exert herself further would have burst her very brain, it seemed to them upon talking to her. Nonetheless, the mother lost to willful ignorance, the boy thanked him for the enlightenment, and asked a final question:

“What pokémon do you have, mister?”

Oak replied that he had none, explaining to the shocked face before him what his grandmother's philosophy was on such matters, to which he was meant with an extended palm clasping a Poké Ball; its crimson color reflecting the evening sunlight in a magnificently blinding fire for a moment before Oak grasped it. He took it into his pocket and thanked the generous pubescent greatly. Afterwords, the newly-gifted Oak would go to his dorm for the night, arriving to find it was the Monday before his PBS 101 project was due. This meant he had a meeting with Agatha the next day.

As such, there was a general level of briskness in his moving from one place to the next as he hurriedly made one day fit the activities of two—by some miracle, being successful. He had homework beyond that class, yes. But there was, for some undefined reason, a need of a cosmic variety for him to make the date with Agatha. This was to have consequences that would impact his life to an immeasurable extent, or so he told himself. Though, no single assignment could have such a detriment to him. Perhaps his grades would suffer, but not his life, a timeframe some sixty years incomplete. Yet, he could sense that rescheduling was intolerable, as was his impatience to begin his search for a pokémon which he had put off until later that week.

So, he slept in that futile way he always would, and the dreams came to him in waves causing his eyes to have luggage that was meant to be left in his dreams. They were unable to be rid of them, as the flight they were to catch had been canceled midway through its voyage.


	3. Chapter 3

After his classes, Oak began a trot toward the library expecting a leisurely pace to be sufficient for his timely arrival. He would stop at the bathroom quickly, then begin again, entering the library precisely four minutes before the scheduled meeting time. He sat in the chair adjacent to the backmost table as he was instructed and began to fiddle with his shirt collar until Agatha arrived.

By the time she did, there was a distinct lack of her casual demeanor. She, in no way, appeared to have left any of her hair to be frayed, skin dehydrated, or eyelashes under-exfoliated; the result was utter beauty, by Oak’s, as well as many other people’s, standards. She sat next to him, her perfume resonating her movements with a wafting sense of intoxication.

There was something about the way she sat, the way she walked, the way she went about her gyrations as her steps prompted her hips to dance and bob, causing him to think of himself in greater, more manly regard. The look of her eyes were piercingly mesmerizing—they would dig their way into his psyche and freeze the whirling thoughts in his head, prompting a storm far greater afterwords. This dance she would do with him in his mind was of a near demonic possession that was frightening so that the only reasonable form of escape from it was to simply stare in paradoxical exasperation for release from her———

“Why, Sammy!” She screeched, her bulbous fingers spindly reached out in disciplinary shame and disapproval. “What gave you any idea you could do such a thing? A comic in this house is unheard of. And I will not tolerate it, do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Oak replied. “I’m sorry.”

“You keep saying that, but hardly anything comes of it. I’ve had enough, Samuel,” (she never called him Samuel). “If you can’t have anything that I tell you stay in your ear bank, that little empty waste of space your neck props up when you roll out of bed each morning, then you just won’t be having supper—ever. Is that understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.” A solemn look came over him. He knew what he’d to do: he had to———  
grasp. It was firm, almost menacing in a strange way. He was held there by her movements, elongated and arching, as her arms wrapped themselves around her bosom in a coddling sense, not at all pushing them together of course; certainly not that.  
She was leaning towards him now with hungry eyes asking what there was she had to do to get him to stop what he was doing, supposedly. She looked to be doing so, but it was not clear why. Or what there was to be done that she did not know. He could not answer.

They would go on to begin a discussion of what was talked about in class: the logistics of energy conversion undergone by encaptured pokemon, and what could be done to remedy the paradoxical nature of such a transformation given the nature of Einsteinian classical mechanics; how it was that this phenomenon was to be classified as somehow one of quantum entanglement, despite the myriad of factors it had, in no way, defined; the implications on the whole of the scientific method that this text’s blatant pseudoscientific discussion had on the trustworthiness of their professor, as well as, they concluded, the entirety of all knowledge garnered pertaining to the relationship between people and pokémon, a central tenet among the proponents of their school’s legitimacy and necessary place of reverence in academia. This was concluded in addition to, finally, the reluctant acceptance that their tuition was wasted coming to such an institution littered with dishonesty in its prized, pedagogical doctrines. This discussion angered them to the point of CU becoming, in their eyes, irredeemable, a position they intended to make their peers realise, also.

“This campus is so empty. Like, there’s nothing to do here,” one girl told them midway through Oak and Agatha’s rambling. This response seemed one they could not be particularly sure was born of an attentive listener’s addition to dialogue.

Nonetheless, they continued elsewhere after a polite defusion with this seemingly uninterested audience member, finding a plethora of interested tutees in the student council who were eager to inquire about the opinions of their constituents. It was unclear weather this was born of genuine wishes to enrich the lives of university students, or if their enthusiasm was a facade for later dismissal after the votes of these two loudmouth anti-academics seemed solidly won over by one member or another. The conversations were curt in an oddly nice way that would give one the impression that the friendliness exerted when tolerating their presence was something to be tolerated in and of itself.

This would continue around campus: Oak and Agatha were to be known as two radicals, a process which, through copious time consumption, eliminated any chance of the assignment they had initially began that week being completed by the week’s end; Friday was now upon them. The beginning of the week was set, ignored, and, subsequently forgotten. Lost to the sands of time—proverbial, Sand Attack-happy Rattata creating a storm in their minds the likes of which one would only see in a desert—this project had vanished, but the seeds of friendship buried underneath the dunes’ untimely cresting orientation had not; these mental ovule had been thoroughly ingrained into the pair’s psychic soil.

 

A sipping of coffee followed a fury of taps as Oak wrote furiously was drowned out by his thumping earbuds playing a who-even-cares variation of garage rock; some psychedelic tune his roommate would play on occasion.

A more variable swath of genre preferences Oak had yet to find than those held by the various druggies floating around campus, all smelling of a narcotic smog. The variety intrigued him, but certainly there was nothing more to be gained from this world of mental alteration. It was incredibly odd seeing someone influenced by such things. He was certain there would be no conceivable chance of his own experiencing those substances which seemed almost wrung out from the Koffing the suppliers always seemed to have, and that's what he wanted. Oak was sure of that. He just wanted to———

keep things as they were. He would go on to tell her exactly what she wanted to hear. “Yes ma’am. I’ll throw it out. I really will—promise.”  
“You best,” she screeched in a low, authoritative, yet somehow feeble tone. An elderly call for compliance it was, and he always heeded such things.  
Nothing would come of it though. He’d keep wishing for change, and it never came. It was a maddeningly cyclical endeavor to please this woman, and the end to her wails never came regardless of the expunged effort used to quiet her. One day there was a good three-hour chunk where she was quiet. She was also asleep, but small victories were what he was accustomed to in his personal sisyphean hellscape. And this was certainly a victory: to keep her quiet should be its own olympic sport, he would love to———

get through school without any trouble, that was all.

The motion along which his life progressed began oscillating in a wavelike nodding—a vigorous collection of fluctuations unpredictable and building upon something larger, progressing to a state of consistent instability which he was meant to mediate. There was no security there, and he had stopped looking for any semblance of coherence within its uncertainty.

 

A leisurely stroll began Oak’s Sunday afternoon, the grass below his shoes was shorter than the patches he saw in the near vicinity. Route 7 was quiet that day, as the population of otherwise eagar trainers were absent on account of the various weekend events he chose to forgo in preference to the tranquility in which this path became enshrouded.

A rustling began in the edge of the grass. Watching tentatively, Oak waited in breathless anticipation for what was to occur. A rumbling came from the jiggling blades of green, any mo—

There are breaks in the quiet air as the concealed rustler reveals itself, its paws landing firmly on the loam: An orange, furry quadruped stares at the bewildered Oak. The atmospheric disturbance causes waves of unease to surround the beast, yet somehow it retained an inquisitive, as opposed to meniacing, expression.

“Is that…?” Ruffling his leaflet containing informative blurbs on the various pokémon inhabiting the routes surrounding Celadon, Oak scans for correlative attributes between the creatures within the photos, and the one before him. “It is! It’s a Grau-layth.”

Having identified the thing, he continued to stare at it before remembering Professor Fuji’s words:

_Don’t just look at them in fear; act, boy. You must act so that, if you do eventually muster the strength to tackle the feat which is claiming it as your own—seizing it, if you will—it won’t hesitate when executing your commands in battle. Be the trainer: don’t let it teach you, but learn from your pokemon by training it through yourself._

Blinking once, Oak felt the condensed poké ball in his pocket before pulling both his hands, and the ball within his palm, out; he pressed the thing’s center.

_I wonder if_ , he thought, _there’s a right way to throw this._

After realizing his continued deliberation, he promptly pitched the ball at the thing, its face showing a hint of a grimace before being pelted in the snout. An opening revealed itself, and the tigerlike pokemon became enveloped in a white mist before disappearing inside the capsule; upon dispersing, the particles of snowish complexion sparkled brilliantly. Gritting his teeth, he watched as the ball wiggled, teetered as the beta-males on the campus sidewalks would when faced with the cocky strides of their more jockish antithesis. Prompting sweat, numerous as those legs would be which adhered to a glass holding some aerated and volatile Doyard, to stream down his nose bridge in a quaking trail, the ball shifted. This moment, he sensed, was as drunkenly uncertain as the path of a bookish student faced with the walls of testosterone parading across campus, the gracelessness of their footsteps committing injustices to the inward poise these social Shakespeareans—gracefully navigating the sociological hierarchy meant to destroy them with Nietzschean poetic justice—carried upon their sagging shoulders.

A snap echoed.

This was it: the pokemon was caught and Oak had his first friend. A pokémon to call his own. This was a partner in this confusing landscape of drunken fraternity parties and skimpish, wobbling wine-sweaters. And all he had to do was through a ball.


End file.
